Project Stamina will add to the cost of racing’s wastage

by Brian de Lore
Published 20th September 2026

When Project Stamina was belatedly released on July 28, it was mooted as a 20-year cross-code infrastructure strategy and national masterplan for NZ’s thoroughbred and harness racing venue network.

If you read it, did your eyes glaze over? It runs for 137 pages, including five appendices.

But it’s not the length of the document that’s the issue; it’s the fact that TAB NZ funded the $900,000 for RCP (Resource Co-Ordination Partnership) to write it and present it to the two remaining codes, only to see it pulled apart and reshaped in the name of ‘One Equine View.’

An insider confirmed the cost to The Optimist at $900,000.

Project Stamina cost $900,000

In the Executive Summary of Project Stamina released by the two codes, it said: “Harness Racing New Zealand (HRNZ) and New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) have worked through the Project Stamina National Masterplan and arrived at a single, shared position, referred to as the “One Equine View”. This One Equine View sets out where the codes align with the Masterplan, where they differ, and the actions they consider most material now.”

You may ask: “Why did TAB NZ spend $900,000 in commissioning RCP to produce Project Stamina only to see the two codes deconstruct it and alter the outcome with its own politically preconceived footprint – what a waste of money!

The racecourses at Oamaru and Gore were both recommended in the RCP Masterplan alongside Riverton, Cromwell, Greymouth, Reefton, and Kumara as the most important community-supported venues to retain, but the One Equine View said both venues should be closed.

Why close them?

RCP’s comprehensive work is impressive, and if you visit P124 of Project Stamina, which examines ‘Race Day Scenarios,’ you will see that RCP rates Oamaru and Gore as more important as community venues than Taupo, Woodville, Waverley, Riverton, Tauherenikau, and Timaru.

62 written Gore questions for NZTR & HRNZ

NZTR and HRNZ travelled to Oamaru and Gore on 27 and 28 August, respectively, to meet with all clubs that use the Oamaru and Gore racecourses, with the four clubs at Gore providing NZTR with 62 written questions before the meeting.

Most questions would not be answered until 7 September, when NZTR General Manager for Strategy & Transformation Dan Smith emailed them. Here are some in summary:

Q. 22. “Club Viability: Why, when both GRC and GHRC consistently boost their stakes and remain self-sufficient, profitable clubs, would you look at exiting them?” Answer: “Club financial performance was not a metric in the model.”

The answers to four questions on loss of sponsorship, filling the sponsorship gap, Licensing Trust Funding, and the funding stream impact all came back with the same answer: “Acknowledged as real and material impacts.”

Under the heading of Horse Welfare, Training Logistics & Travel Friction, Q.29 asked, “Could you explain the travel friction score?” The answer came back as one of the great gobbledegook responses of all time, and it more or less sums up many of the less-than-satisfactory answers the Gore Racing Club received.

Q.29: Could you please explain the travel friction score?

Answer to Q. 29: “Travel friction is the model’s core measure. The P-Median optimisation minimises total weighted travel time across all demand nodes nationally, so it optimises the aggregate rather than testing any single corridor or participant group. Those effects are real but sit outside what the model measures and belong in the codes’ regional transition planning.”

That answer sums up what is wrong with NZTR.

When Gore asked about further stakeholder attrition from the loss of owners, breeders, trainers, and volunteers, the predictable, repeated response was, “participant attrition wasn’t modelled, and we don’t dispute the risk.”

If Oamaru and Gore close, it’s impossible to believe those racing jurisdictions and the surrounding areas wouldn’t suffer further losses of owners, trainers, breeders, and horse numbers, and lose wagering and future racing participation. NZTR don’t seem worried about that, because they haven’t done the metrics.

Of course, Project Stamina could end up on an NZTR shelf to collect dust and never get done, like many of its forerunner reports. In a TAB NZ betting market, that would be the favourite outcome, paying $1.70.

Two decades of wasting $ millions

It would add a further $900,000 to racing’s multi-millionaire club of wastage, an ever-increasing pile of wasted cash since the start of the new millennium.

Racing people with good memories will surely recall a succession of disastrous decisions by various boards and careless CEOs who arrived and left at regular intervals without accountability.

Here’s a recap:

• 2005: NZTR sold its half share in its office building at 180 Taranaki St, Wellington, for $2.4m, producing a book profit of $1,122,123 after costs. It rented out half the space for $95,000 annually. NZTR went to the NZRB office at Petone rent-free for three years, but has paid rent ever since. The 180 Taranaki St building was resold in 2023 for $27.5m. At the time, the NZTR board said it wasn’t in the business of owning property – go figure?
  
  
• 2005: Wellington RC joined RACE in 2005 and signed over its assets, although the transfer process was still incomplete 12 years later, in 2017. By 2011, the WRC had contributed around $9.28 million in capital, while Rangitikei’s capital account was only $315,000 and Marton’s $681,000. Each member club had equal representation and voting rights – two representatives each. Why did the WRC agree to such a deal? RACE has repeatedly converted inherited racing land into cash to finance debt reduction, capital development and the operation of its business. Although reported net assets have risen, much of that increase reflects externally funded infrastructure and accounting gains on historically low-cost land. Twenty-three years after its formation, RACE remains heavily indebted, and its latest accounts again rely partly on future land sales to support the going-concern assumption.
  
  
• 2006: Directors’ fees of $175,000 were paid for the first time, following Chair Guy Sargent tabling in the 2004-05 Annual Report (AR) that “A review of New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing’s Board operations to ensure effective governance in accordance with the Institute of Directors’ guidelines.” It’s not the cost here that proved problematic, but the start of an ongoing invitation for non-racing people to join the board.
  
  
• 2006: The Free Tax campaign succeeded, and the tax rate was reduced to 2% – parity with gaming. It brought in $33m in the first year, 2006-07, but racing benefited only marginally. Instead, NZRB expanded its own infrastructure and between 2006-07 (Chair Michael Stiassny) and 2014-15 (Chair Glenda Hughes) the NZRB wage bill grew from $27m to $66m, employing 820 people, while the racing industry contracted. A 2011 government briefing recorded that the racing industry’s contribution to GDP and the number of jobs it sustained had declined.
  
  
• 2009: NZTR commissioned a consultancy firm called BoardWork to review the existing process of board member appointments. BoardWork said the existing ten-person representative board should be replaced by a seven-person independent board selected for ability, experience and governance competence. It nevertheless said a majority should understand and have credibility within thoroughbred racing. It did not recommend the Members’ Council as the director selection body. The principal argument for abolishing the old NZTR board was that it was too representative of their constituencies. So NZTR abolished a representative board, but then created a representative body to select an independent board – all they did was move it up one level.
  
  
• 2009: NZRB bought the Typhoon Betting System to replace Jetbet. The AR said the new technology would expand the range of betting products, improve reliability and reduce costs. In October, the industry was publicly told that Typhoon would be installed by December 2010 and that it was a $5m investment. Newly appointed CEO Andrew Brown described Typhoon as the outcome of a worldwide search for the most efficient and reliable system and said it had been selected as the best and most cost-effective option. But the 2011 AR said it was slower and more costly than expected, and couldn’t provide some of the functionality NZRB required. By 31 July 2011, Typhoon’s cost had risen to $ 14.12m. It was never turned on.
  
  
• 2009: Chair Stiassny appointed Andrew Brown as NZRB CEO after what NZRB described as an “extensive and rigorous” domestic and international search. Brown started inMay 2009. The industry reported his package at NZ$950,000. In January 2011, he suddenly resigned ‘for family reasons’ after 20 months, but the NBR reported it was ‘in the face of a major defamation action.’ The severance figure Brown received is unknown, but one employee received $580,000 – $590,000 in the year he left – likely to be Brown.
  
  
• 2011: RACE by July that year had assets of $35.788m, liabilities of $11.806m and net assets of $23.983m. But the member clubs had originally contributed capital accounts totalling $26.235m, meaning RACE had already accumulated a $2.252m deficit against that contributed capital. By July 2025 RACE reported net assets increased by approximately $11.1m between 2011 and 2025. But the increase is deceiving, as the Government provided $10.5m towards that synthetic track and RACE capitalised about $11.723m of synthetic-track expenditure. So, a substantial part of the increase in RACE’s physical asset base came from outside capital supplied by the taxpayer, rather than profits generated by RACE’s business.
  
  
• 2012: Chair Stiassny appointed Chris Bayliss as NZRB CEO to start in August 2012, despite his zero knowledge of racing and betting. That financial year, he was paid $960,000-$970,000 (8 months), and the Herald reported his package as more than $1m. In his first year, staff expenses increased by $7.1m. Even the neutral KPMG, in doing an audit, said “how much capability is optimal?” and advised NZRB to measure return on investment. KPMG also noted that “six of the seven members of the senior management leadership team were new to the racing industry” (a scenario with an air of recent familiarity). Bayliss was a disaster – KPMG refused Bayliss’s pie-in-the-sky budgets, describing them as ‘aspirational and very challenging.’ Bayliss spent $3.4m on restructuring in his first year and millions more relocating TAB broadcasting to Stanley St, Auckland. Bayliss suddenly left the job at short notice, after less than two years, amid intense industry speculation of behavioural issues. The Herald headlined it “Racing man’s mystery exit from $1m job”  
  
  
• 2013: National Party President Glenda Hughes was appointed NZRB Chair on August 1^st, devoid of racing and betting knowledge. It was an ill-conceived political appointment; Hughes developed an association with Paddy Power and OpenBet (against strong opposition from NZTR) to build a Fixed Odds Betting Platform, against Deloitte’s advice that the FOB “carried significant risk to the balance sheet.” Hughes projected an original cost of $25m. When launched five months late in January 2019, the cost was $42m plus another $7m in the first six months, plus annual contractual commitments to Paddy Power and OpenBet of $17.3m. Hughes held the Chair position for six years.
  
  
• 2014: The Bayliss-driven Trackside broadcasting relocation to Auckland cost $1.1m for the shift alone. That figure covered only the unbudgeted redundancy provision. NZRB also guaranteed $8.9 million of bank borrowing and $4.1m of lease obligations for NZ Live, the start-up company that became its sole broadcasting supplier, while committing a further $3.9m to broadcasting-equipment finance. The identifiable financial package therefore approached $18 million, although guarantees represent potential exposure rather than proven losses. More significantly, NZRB entered a ten-year services arrangement while its other non-cancellable operating commitments increased by $57.8 million in one year, predominantly in broadcasting technical services and telecommunications. The accounts do not disclose how much of that increase belonged specifically to NZ Live, so it would be unsafe to call $57.8 million the cost of the Auckland move. What can safely be said is that NZRB assumed tens of millions of dollars of long-term contractual risk, supported the debt and lease of a company it did not own, and carried much of the downside without receiving any disclosed ownership interest in the business. The eventual cost to racing has never been transparently demonstrated. What a dumb board agreeing to that.
  
  
• 2015: Hughes appoints MFat departee John Allen as NZRB CEO (no racing or betting background but, nevertheless, a brilliant knowledge of classical music) in a politically convenient move, on a salary of $620,000. Hughes and Allen announced the FOB project in December 2016. Allen’s ambitious projections failed miserably to deliver – forecast net profit of $185m in 2018/19 (actual was only $136.7m, minus $48.3m, -26%), and $200.6m in 2019/20 (actual was $166m or $36.8m below budget). NZRB never achieved the promised $200.6m. The FOB became the clearest example of NZRB investing heavily in a strategy that events soon rendered obsolete. John Allen’s 4½ years were a financially debilitating time for racing. By the time John Allen resigned and Entain retired the unsatisfactory FOB platform, the cost had exceeded $100m.
  
  
• 2020: In August, the NZTR approved replacing the NZTR Racing Management System with the Single National System (SNS), and the project commenced in September. For the next three years, NZTR continued with the SNS under CEO’s Bernard Saundry’s management and spent over $4m on a project that simply failed to work. Racing Australia also dropped $2.35m on the failed project.
  
  
• 2023: The year the Awapuni reconstruction commenced with a budget of $5m and a completion date of April 2024. By April 2025, after 19 months without grass racing, RACE and NZTR were highly confident they had succeeded. On April 8, after trials involving 88 horses, RACE announced the reconstruction was complete and said the track had been cleared to resume racing. GM Brad Taylor declared $5.7m had been well spent, but a slip on Anzac Day in the first race at the first meeting back obliterated that remark. Industry estimates have put the additional cost of rebuilding Awapuni at around $8 million over two more years, although NZTR has yet to publicly disclose the final project budget and says the remaining funding is still to be secured. More man-made waste that NZTR and RACE must share.
  
  
• 2020: The Racing Integrity Board (RIB) came into being following the Racing Act of 2020. The last year of the Racing Integrity Unit (RIU) in 2020/21, including the JCA, cost $7.99m. The operating funding for 2026/27 is $17.87m plus another $2.056m for its capital programme – total TAB funding $19.88m. This is difficult to reconcile when, in 2024/25, the RIB serviced 997 race meetings, of which 410 (41%) were Greyhounds. Losing more than two-fifths of its race meetings while reducing expenditure by just 0.05% owes the industry a detailed explanation of where the greyhound savings went and why its overall cost base remains virtually unchanged.
  
  
• 2026: When Entain arrived in 2003, it had to buy out the unpaid NZRB contractual arrangement with OpenBet, which was known to be in the vicinity of $20m. TAB NZ is now over three years into the Entain/TAB NZ partnership, and the jury is out on where it’s heading financially and whether it will last the contractual term of 25 years. In 2024/24, the betting deficit after distributions was $38.4m, and that’s the red warning light for racing. It was only able to do that because the arrangement includes guaranteed payments and because TAB NZ has been releasing cash received upfront from Entain.

All the figures and quotes in the bullet points above come from the Annual Reports of NZTR, NZRB, RITA, TAB NZ, and the Government website. They are all available online for checking.

The 16 bullet points above aren’t the full story of wastage, but they chronicle consistently poor decision-making over more than two decades. Many other, lesser instances have been left out for space reasons. Over two decades, a series of poor decisions by incompetent people has cost the NZ racing business hundreds of millions of dollars.

The TAB Advisory Committee is now a retired body, but its work showed that the current NZRB has been living well beyond its means, increasing costs by 43% since 2003. If we don’t stop this reckless governance, then racing is unsustainable.  

Everything comes back to people. We deserve better governance. One strong leader with a few good generals might stem the bleeding and fix it.

Congratulations if you have read this blog through to the end. That puts you approximately in the top 5% of online attention spans. Now try reading this:

https://nztr.co.nz/projectstamina

We must stay Optimistic.